In current practice, as content providers seek to provide more high-quality video to users over the Internet, the content providers quickly find that high bandwidth live streams distributed to many simultaneous users can lead to very high bandwidth cost. There are a number of different solutions to limit the bandwidth usage of multiple high-quality streams that are currently in use. However, each of these solutions has drawbacks. One popular method is to provide a “waiting room” where users basically have to wait their turn to see the video. A drawback to this method is that it limits the number of users who can see the video at once and reduces the overall user experience. Another method is to ask the users if they are still watching the video after a set timeout period and disconnect the users who do not respond. This again degrades the user experience by popping up messages to the user.
There is a need for a method and system that overcomes or mitigates the aforementioned shortcomings of current practice of providing video to users.